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An anonymous reader writes "Wish you could start your car via your cell phone, but don't feel like ponying up the $40k for a Chevrolet Volt or $499 (plus $29 a year) for an aftermarket system from Viper? This hack relies on a cheap prepaid cellphone that has had its vibration motor surgically removed, replaced by a couple of leads triggering the car's starter. Whenever the phone receives a call it starts up the car — a somewhat dodgy proposition if a telemarketer ever gets hold of your number, but an interesting solution nonetheless. Total cost of the project: $71.03."

Because in any place that has a winter, it's a lot nicer to get into a warm car that's ready to drive instead of waiting for the engine, and you, to warm up. And no, it doesn't contribute to global warming/wasteful, because the car is going to idle the same amount of time regardless of you being there or not.

Either you live where the sun shines all the time and it never gets below freezing, or you're a snow bunny.

Ever start your car in temperatures below -40? And that's not counting wind chill. Your engine will not like it if you jump in, start and go with zero warm up time. That being said, 30 seconds to 2 minutes is all the time needed to get the juices flowing.

I agree. I just scrape the ice off and drive off right away. Of course, then my windscreen fogs up on the inside due to chilling from the airflow over it, but fuck you or your kids if you happen to walk in front of me: better you die than I "waste time or gasoline", right?

I've owned and/or driven in a LOT of cars, and the problem of "the inside fogs over" clears up in about 30 seconds of running the defroster. So: hop in the car, start, turn on defroster. Put on seat belt. Turn on radio. Inside of the windshield is already defogged. Give me a freakin' break.

My 22-year-old Citroen CX usually cleared the windows within 30 seconds or so, even in the -20C mornings we had over our fairly brief winter just there. In the cold weather it took longer for hydraulic system to bring the thick, cold, gooey oil up to pressure.

The problem is that most people crank their defroster to maximum fan speed and that makes the engine take forever to warm up . The secret is to put the fan on a low speed (even 1) and don't be in the car for a minute or so (while you clear the windows), then ease it up to 2 and start going. Notch the fan up as you notice your temp gauge going up. Don't use maximum speed unless your engine is at full operating temperature. Even then, very small engines in very cold weather will lose heat at maximum fan speed unless they're actually driving (i.e. the engine is under load); idling at full fan speed may still result in the engine cooling off.

I start my engine, leave the fan on low, turn on my seat warmer, clear the windows, and by the time the windows are scraped, I drive. Drive gently and easily until the engine is warmer. That way I get heat quickly and I am friendlier to the environment.

If the interior of your car is really humid and you're getting frost inside on the windows, turn on the air conditioning. This will help to sublimate the ice faster. (Keep the heat turned to the warmest temperature, of course. It'll still warm up your car - but with air with less humidity in it, which helps to remove the frost and ice.)

Dude, it's not that hard. 1) start car, turn on defroster. 2) Scrape windshield. 3) by the time you're done, the inside of the windshield is already defogged, even if the defrost hasn't gotten up to temperature yet. It doesn't need to be warm to get the fog off the inside of the windshield, it just needs a few seconds of relatively dry air blowing over it... which you get from the first few seconds of defroster. It only needs to get warm at all to get the frost off the outside of the window, which, you know

SNOW is not generally a problem when it comes to defrosting windows... it's ICE. Keep in mind, some of us live where much of the frozen perciptiation we get is not like the nice fluffy and powdery snow you may get. It's a totally different ball-game when there's a layer of ice on your windshield twice as thick as the glass itself. Sometimes you have to let the engine warm up enough to melt the undersurface before it can be scraped off.

Mod this up. I live in the US Midwest and snow is not a problem, but we tend to get ice at least once a year. Even if the ice is only a quarter inch thick, you can't scrape it off (at least not without breaking your scraper) until you warm up the car a little to loosen up the ice. Snow is very easy to deal with and my car has my window defogged in 30 seconds but getting rid of the ice takes time.

It's definitely a waste to let it sit there for long periods of time. At -40 my experience is that it can be useful for the engine itself to give it a couple minutes...with many vehicles you can hear when it's ready to drive--the note of the engine changes slightly.

I then warm up the rest of the car by driving very sedately for quite a while until the transmission and suspension stop feeling so stiff.

These sorts of devices aren't all that expensive. I'd have no issues with hacking an alternative receiver (phone or whatever) into the INPUT on the unit, but not directly into the starter.

A typical remote starter does stuff like:

1. Have a sensor on the spark plug wires so that it can detect the engine RPM and figure out when the engine has turned over. It runs the starter "just enough."2. Refuses to start the engine if it is already running.3. Has a timer so that it won't run the starter all day if something goes wrong.4. Has a safety interlock on the hood, so that your mechanic doesn't lose his hands when the engine cranks without warning (granted, whoever installs it might not bother to wire this up).5. Have some kind of mechanism built in so that somebody can't just drive off with your car.6. Has some kind of way to transition to normal operation when you insert the keys.7. Often they have extra features like a mode that will periodically run the car for 15 minutes to keep the engine warm - for cold climates I guess (though I suspect an electrical heater would be safer).

I would never wire something like this to my car without some basic safety/control functionality. By the time you do all that you could have just bought one - they aren't actually that expensive if you install them yourself.

I've heard them a few times give quite a bit of misinformation. They haven't the slightest clue about the differences between WVO, SVO, BioDiesel. Say that 10,000 mile oil changes are 'stupid' (It's VW recommended, they go up to 30,000 km in Europe).

No, it's NOT going to sit and idle the same amount of time. When I start my car up, it idles for about 10 seconds; that's how much time it takes to circulate the oil. By then I've scraped the car already on the outside. The inside won't fog up if you put the defroster on medium or high to keep moist air away from it, and crack the rear windows a bit.

I actually ride a bike to work most days (regardless of temp, I've ridd

Generally block heaters are used on Diesel engines which aren't that popular in the US. I don't see a switch to Diesel happening here any time soon either as Diesel fuel here more than expensive enough here to offset it's efficiency gain over gasoline.
Maybe block heaters could be used on Gasoline engines? I'm not sure if the blocks have the necessary holes for adding the heater. It's an interesting idea. House owners could do this before work. Most apartment complexes don't have power outlets near wh

People who live in cold climates (especially those with a car with a few miles on it) who frequently park outside like them.

You really shouldn't drive away until your car has had some time to warm up and reach a stable idle. Your car is also really cold so you don't want to sit in it for a couple of minutes while the engine warms up when the heater core also has to warm up. Hit the remote start button while you are putting your coat on and your car is ready to go when you get there. Also a lot of peopl

There is this strange theory, widely accepted in certain circles, that using machines to handle mundane, tedious, or otherwise undesirable tasks is a good thing. Having a machine handle transmission shifting seems to fall into the same vein as having a machine handle most of my floating point math.

If you happen to enjoy twiddling a transmission, more power to you, we all need hobbies to fill the void between birth and death; but for those of us who don't care, labor saving devices are progress.

There are some tasks that machines are bad at; gear selection in an automobile is one of them. Automatic transmissions cannot predict when you are approaching a curve, or a hill, or other vehicles. Gear selection needs to be based on what you are about to do, not what you just did.

Note that all race cars use manual transmissions, as does any decent sports car, for just these reasons.

Automatic transmissions are also mechanically inefficient. Cars with a manual gearbox generally get 1 or 2 more miles per gallon; it is strange how many people want an efficient car, yet they elect to pay extra for the automatic option.

I prefer manual transmissions myself, but automatic transmissions these days are not all that bad. You give up maybe 1 MPG usually, and even then it depends on if your A/C is on. With the A/C on a car with automatic may actually be a little more efficient, because it's programmed to cut the A/C off during heavy acceleration. This is especially helpful in city driving.

Um no, not unless you are looking at racing from 10 years ago or longer. Automatic transmissions DOMINATE drag racing right now. you get spooky consistant ET's running an Auto, plus you can get Auto transmission that handle far more HP than manuals.

Also some of the more recent rallies in europe are being won with automatics in the car.

Here is a thought. Build a dragster without a driver.
A light sensor to detect the "Go" light. (Yeah I know tons about racing.)
A little computer power to keep it running straight, and to tell it when to start and stop.

Top fuel and funny car classes don't have a transmission at all - they're one speed. There is a clutch pack that slowly engages - automatically, the timing is programmed by the mechanics before the run. That hardly qualifies as either manual or automatic.

Rally cars have a manual transmission, shifted by a paddle to the right of the steering wheel. Watch any of the TV coverage, you'll see them shifting with the right hand without having to remove it from the wheel. Rallying is, in fact, an example of why

Most people who want an efficient car choose a car over a motorcycle too. Same reason.

You might enjoy driving or getting better performance or whatever. Lots of other people prefer not to have to push the clutch in and out constantly for the hour of stop-and-go bumper to bumper commuting that do each day (and don't try telling them to just stay in second, that's just more details they don't care about...)

Automatic transmissions cannot predict when you are approaching a curve, or a hill, or other vehicles. Gear selection needs to be based on what you are about to do, not what you just did.

Have you driven any modern automatics recently? They've come a long way since the 80s and 90s. They have all sorts of sensors that measure engine load, accelerator position, and vehicle grade and they're much more effective at keeping or putting the vehicle in the proper gear for the task.

I'll have to admit it's not as 'perfect' as I would be controlling a manual gearbox, however 99% of the time it's very effective, and a minor sacrifice for the convenience of not having to shift.

I purposely bought a stick shift in my Ranger, because I enjoyed using them at the time.After seven years, I've come to the conclusion that it's merely a distracting chore, as trucks aren't that fun to drive anyway.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you can shove your elitist anti-American (and/or canadian) attitude. Yes, we all get how cool you are for being able to operate a clutch AND a shift.

Straight manual transmissions are on their way out anyway, being replaced by computer operated 'manual' transmiss

You should come and experience the stop and go "driving", that constitutes Los Angeles. I dearly love manuals, and have often thought of switching to automatic. I have a performance type car, and replacing a worn clutch disc after 35k miles was not pleasant. And Yes I do know how to drive, and have taken two other manuals over 100k w/o wearing the clutch, until I came to LA. The dealer said I was doing averag in clutch wear for these cars, here in LA.So an automatic would be cheaper in heavy stop and go commutes

Lots of the inefficient automatics are fairly good at efficiency. even my old th125 transmission in my 1986 Fiero will do a TCC lockup after 35mph to eliminate the losses in the transmission.

efficiency is low when it's not locked, but 90% of the time when the car is moving it is. newer 6 speed automatics are even more efficient. I saw one that was getting better fuel economy than a 5 speed stick. the car can decide shift points better than a person can.

a somewhat dodgy proposition if a telemarketer ever gets hold of your number

That alone is enough to doom this project from the start - telemarketers are relentless, and they will get your phone number even if you haven't given it to anyone. Hell, you could also get trouble from people dialing wrong numbers, or from people miswriting/mistyping their phone number when giving it to somebody else (I get a phone call in Spanish every so often, and at one point they confirmed that they had indeed dialed my numb

I've never seen a phone (at least since the analog cell phone era) that you coudn't program to ring differently with different numbers. Set it to "vibrate only" from your other cell phone and you're good to go; telemarketers can call all they want, and all that will happen is they waste their time. The call won't even cost you minutes, since it won't be answered.

Or - they fact that cell companies like to reuse numbers quickly - it used to be that the phone company would wait 1 year before reissuing a number after it is disconnected. i want to say the cell phone companies wait 30 days? if that it seems.

Your numbers are WAY off for Net10 and TracFone. TracFone's minutes are three times what Net10's are; I've used both. Net10 would be a good bet; you would only need to buy minutes if your card ran out, which iirc is about once a year. So you're talking thirty bucks a year -- you don't spend minutes if the phone isn't answered, and it wouldn't need to answer to start the car.

I'd prefer my phone to be able to open my garage door. It should be a cinch, as it's all radio signals (I know, different frequencies, but hey! what about the universal radio chips that were supposed to be controlled by software?), but nope, if I forget my remote, I cannot use my phone.

How old is your car? Mine's an '02 and it has not one but three door openers built in. If yours doesn't it would be far easier to rig a phone to open your garage; just hook a relay to the button inside the garage and to the opening phone's vibrator (you'd probably need a diode or four too). It would be far cheaper than a remote car starter, maybe five bucks worth of parts, plus the phone and minutes.

In my opinion this is far too cheap of a hack. You need more control. I've personally built a very elaborate text message based system that incorporates anti-theft features/GPS/door lock/un-lock and other features. Costs $11/month in a prepaid sim card. Was great fun to construct using a microcontroller and various other parts. I was planning on building a website documenting it - but I'm horrible at putting webpages together. Other than the GPS, the cost wasn't that much more - but the unit does far more for me. Working out the bugs however took a long time, so if you're in a hurry to get remote cell based car warm-up, this project is a start.

OK, we've had the telemarketer accidentally starting the car. What about if you leave it in gear when someone accidentally starts it? I didn't see any safety interlocks or checks on this guy's lash-up. What about when the mobile phone company sends you a "helpful" (read: marketing) message to tell you about their wonderful new ways of getting your money.... on the day after you go on holiday for a couple of weeks?
And that's leaving out ALL the reasons why you'd have to inform your insurance company so you

You safety concerns make no sense. It uses the standard remote starter. And even so, any modern automatic won't start in gear (most won't even let you take the key out of the ignition if it is in gear).

Seriously, this is a hack and a half. That's one of the worst soldering and assembly jobs I've ever seen (cat5 for hookup wire?) I don't even see enough parts to make it work at all. You'd need one relay to provide ignition power, then a second to hit the starter. Plus there are no other features here like a neutral/park detect (so the vehicle doesn't start moving), an auto shutdown so the vehicle won't run for days if you accidentally start it and forget, etc.

Ok, so they did this for $71, not $10. Why even put that $10 price tag in the title? Because one component costs $10?That makes about as much sense as quoting the price of a whole car that can remote start out of the box.

I've only been in the US a few years and I see people with these remote start setups quite a bit. The only thing is I have no idea why they're useful? I've never had any real desire to start my car when I'm walking towards it (which is what most people seem to do with them) and in fact it would be illegal in my home country. If anyone could explain what they're for I'd appreciate it:)

Outside temperature 20 below zero, think about it. Some areas of the US have very harsh winters, remotely startinga car 10 minutes early remotely allows time to warm the interior to something more comfortable say 40 deg. Notto mention it is better for the engine to be at least slightly warmed up before placing it under a load.

In most states letting your car start or run without you present is illegal. (yes, this includes starting your car and running back inside while the ice melts or the air cools). Also, it's not exactly the safest idea if you live in an area with high theft. I read a story a while back about some thieves that would cruise a nearby rich neighborhood and pop a door on a car 'warming up in the drive way' drive off and surprise the owner when there was no car there anymore. This made even easier by people who le

Here's a better solution. [blogspot.com] This design connects to the cell phone audio output (so you don't have to open the phone) and has a DTMF decoder chip, so you send it tones to make things happen. That at least gives you some protection against random phone calls.

I live in New England (Maine, specifically), and I personally see little use for a remote starter. But I purchased a car that was meant to be used in this climate (glow plugs for the Diesel engine, heated seats, heated side mirrors, and a small electric coil in the windshield defroster to clear the windows quickly). But a lot of cars simply aren't equipped that way. Volvo, Saab, VW, and maybe a handful of other brands really know what cold weather means, and give you the tools to compensate for it. With

Can't speak for other people, but I warm up my car so that the engine is running smoothly before I head out into the 10-degree winter weather up here in the northern U.S. It's for the engine's sake, not mine.

Parts of this country get very, very cold in winter. It can take a long time for a car to warm up to the point that ice on the windows will melt. Weather conditions vary but I've personally given up on scraping very thick ice off of the windows a few times. Warming up the car can be the only way to get the windows clear.

I have had remote start systems in the past, but this year I installed a parking heater [webasto.com], which is basically a tankless water heater with a circulating pump. It runs on gasoline and warms the car's coolant up before I get in and start it. It can be operated by a remote or by a timer on the dashboard. It seems pretty efficient, as what's coming out of its exhaust pipe is barely lukewarm. Once the coolant is warm it turns on the car's heater blower and will defrost the windows and warm the interior.

It's a lot better than a remote start - uses less fuel, and there is never a cold start of the engine.

Downsides - the cost. I bought mine on eBay, brand new for about $275 from a car dealer who was going out of business. Normally these heaters are not sold directly to end users, you have to get it installed (usually at a heavy truck parts supplier), and the cost for one including installation ranges up to $1800. It took me 9.5 hours to install (at no cost other than a full day's time). Supposedly the factory installers take about the same time to do it.

Electric engine block heaters are a lot cheaper (can be under $50) - you just plug them into an extension cord, but most people can't do that in their work parking lot.

With the remote I can start my heater from up to 450 feet away (and I have). The heater I have is German made and conforms to their stringent safety standards, plus it sounds like a tiny jet engine. Similar heaters are used on big diesel trucks to provide heat when parked, in areas that do not allow the trucks to idle their engines.

It ain't really necessary unless you go to seriously deep temperature. If your usage profile includes -12 C (conversion for those of us having no clue about Fahrenheits), proper oil with the right viscosity will be 'there' within half a minute, tops. From then on, light load is way better to heat up the engine than letting it idle for an eternity. It's quite some air pollution, too.

Now, if you're going -30 or so on a semi-regular basis, I'd suggest a block heater or a propper fuel based heating system. Thos

I should also add that starting the car early helps to heat up the windshield and other windows, making it quite a bit easier to scrape the car after an ice storm by partially melting the ice on the windows.

In other words, there are sometimes practical occasions to prestart the car, not just reasons based on comfort.

What happen's if someone finds out your phone number? Can they steal your car?

No.

This is just using a cell phone to trigger the auxiliary trigger input on a remote starter system installed in the car. Basically this input just simulates pressing the Start button on the remote starter's remote.

Installed correctly, most remote starter systems will stop the engine if the brake pedal is pressed. Additionally, since the ignition key is not in, the steering is locked. Also, if the engine speed goes over a certain limit, the remote starter will stop the engine. Most cars with automatic transmissions require you to press the brake pedal to shift out of Park these days, so there's no chance of stealing the car that way.

I suppose if the car had a manual transmission, it would be possible to make it move forwards or backwards in whatever direction the steering wheel is pointed, but only at slightly over idle speed. You might be able to drive it up onto a trailer.

The problem that might come up is that most of these systems come with a pin switch that disables the system if the car's hood is opened (so you don't get your hands torn off when the engine starts unexpectedly, while changing a belt for example). Many people do not bother to install the hood pin switch. You would want to make sure it is in place and working, because a telemarketer's call could be deadly.

If the phone rings while you're driving or the car is already running, nothing happens other than the remote start will keep the engine running after you remove the key (if you don't touch the brake pedal.

Like the other poster, you obviously have not owned a car where the temperatures drop REALLY low.

Where I live, when it reaches minus 40, it will take 15 minutes of my car sitting in Idle for it to become DRIVEABLE - let alone the 20 to 30 before it would actually become a comfortable temperature. If I don't let it idle for that amount of time, it will stall about as soon as I try to put it into any gear. The gas line needs time to get the gasline antifreeze flowing - the oil needs time to warm up and get in

Not if they used the remote start circuitry in the car, which it looks like this author did. The remote start circuit already has all the safety features built into the regular ignition key starter, plus probably a few extras.